Your Feelings Won’t Kill You – But Your Clutter Might

One of the reasons people keep clutter around is because of feelings. Uncomfortable feelings. One of the common reasons people avoid decluttering later in life is also…uncomfortable feelings. Those pesky feelings – they really cause us a lot of grief.

If you are interested in overcoming your own discomfort when it comes to decluttering, press on Dear Reader! In this blog I will share a secret trick to taking back your power over your feelings. I learned this from one of my favorite experts on feelings, Dr Brène Brown. She wrote a book called Atlas of the Heart that I highly recommend reading if you struggle with feelings (because you are suffering from being human.) Dr. Brown teaches us about the power of language when it comes to emotions. When you can recognize and name your feelings it is a big step toward taking away their power.

We are going to explore and name a few of the common feelings often associated with decluttering. But before we do that, a gentle reminder that your feelings won’t kill you. Think of them as visitors just passing through. You welcome the visitors in to stay a bit, and then you escort them out.

Longing

When you lose somebody it usually hurts to go through their stuff. Even if years have gone by since the loss, it’s hard to believe that the feelings of longing won’t kill you. So expect to feel longing, and welcome it in. I know that sounds scary, but there is a difference between expectation and dread. When you name longing as the discomfort that is coming, you are mentally prepared to deal with it when it does.

My mother died almost 7 years ago. There are still things of hers that my dad and I are in the process of decluttering. When I go over to his house for a decluttering session I am ready for feel longing for my mom. I don’t try to push it away. Instead I let it in. Usually I shed a few tears in the process. But then it passes. My dad and I share a funny memory or speculate on what she would say about the things we are decluttering. Then it isn’t scary anymore, it’s just part of the process.

Guilt

Of all the decluttering feelings that won’t kill you, guilt is by far the biggest and scariest. We keep things out of guilt all the time. Guilt is the companion of longing when we are decluttering a loved one’s possessions. Guilt rears its head when we are decluttering something that was expensive. And, oh yes – guilt shows up every time you go to toss out some piece of paper with macaroni and glitter glued to it…because your kid made it.

Here’s the thing about guilt, speaking out loud to it helps diminish its iron grip on your conscience. Yes, I am advocating talking to yourself while decluttering. Strengthening one side of your internal dialogue makes it a fair fight. When guilt knocks on the door, go ahead and let it in…for a conversation. When guilt says ‘you are dishonoring your mother by decluttering her favorite sweater’ you can answer back. ‘My mother would not want me to be burdened by this sweater.’ If guilt shames you for trying to declutter the expensive skin toner you bought and don’t like, answer back. ‘I’m going to let myself off the hook for this mistake I made because I’m human.’ And when guilt says it’s illegal to toss anything your kid created, say loudly (in your head, if you want) – ‘I can love my child and throw away this thing he made at the same time.’

When you have a worthy opponent for guilt to spar with, it rarely wins out!

Fear

Your feelings won’t kill you, but they sure try to mess with your psyche. Fear is a multi-time offender. Fear is what we feel when we want to declutter that thing we haven’t used in years but then, ‘what if I need it someday?’ Fear will try to derail you by conjuring up every doomsday scenario in which you declutter a random item you kept ‘just in case’ and then needed it. 

So fear has you feeling uncomfortable? Let’s throw it off balance with some fact checking! Checking the facts behind your fears of the doomsday scenario usually produces some pretty sound logic in favor of decluttering. What are the chances that you will need the tent you haven’t used in 10 years? Less than 30%? Less than 20%? And let’s say the unlikely scenario does arise that you need a tent? What would you do if you no longer had yours? Perhaps borrow one? Look for one on Buy Nothing? Sleep under the stars? When you check the facts and the chances are low that you’ll need the tent and high that you’ll solve your tent problem some other way, you can show fear to the door and say ‘thanks for coming,but I’ve got this!’

You’ve Got This

Stop assuming that your feelings are there to kill you and let them join you for a bit. You’ll soon see you were giving them way too much real estate in your mind. Feeling your feelings may be hard, but you should know by now that you can do hard things!

If this all makes sense to you in theory but you’d like more of a hand-holding version with a specific framework to follow, I offer an online class you should check out called Clearing Emotional Clutter. In it I tackle just about every ‘scary’ decluttering scenario and teach you a thought framework you can use for each and every one!